Homemade Garlic Compound Butter

Last week I made homemade butter, which turned out to be extremely easy and tastes just like commercial butter. I wanted to do something fun with it, but baking with it would just use it up (not to mention I’m not eating processed sugar this month) and simply spreading it on toast seemed boring. Instead, I looked into making compound butter. Compound butter is butter that has an additional flavor or ingredients added to it. Basically, you bring butter to room temperature and mix it with other ingredients such as nuts, fresh herbs, cheese, and spices. For instance, you can add dill and lemon juice to butter and serve with fish, add paprika and serve with chicken, or add cinnamon or maple syrup and serve with breakfast.

I found a great list of compound butter recipes at thenibble.com, including a section of sweet butters that sound delicious but I obviously wouldn’t be making this month. Out of all of the savory butters, I thought a garlic one would be the most likely to be used in my house. Plus, it can be frozen, so we can keep some on hand and whip it out next time we want garlic bread.

And oh, how garlicky and delicious this butter is. I topped toasted sourdough slices, as you can see, and they were crunchy bites of garlic heaven. I also melted some and put it on popcorn, which was a great movie (or anytime) snack. If you like garlic, I highly recommend this recipe!

What ingredients would you put in butter?

Garlic Butter

Adapted from thenibble.com

1/3 C butter, softened
3 large cloves garlic, finely diced or pureed
2 T parsley, chopped
Salt to taste (I recommend between 1/4-1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt)

Place butter, garlic and parsley in a large bowl. Mix together at medium speed with electric beaters until thoroughly combined (around 2 minutes). Mix in salt to taste. Shape butter if desired (you can press it into molds or ramekins or shape into a log) and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour to let flavors develop. Refrigerate and use within around one week or freeze for up to three weeks.

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21 Comments on Homemade Garlic Compound Butter

Wheels
January 12, 2011 at 12:11 pm (14 years ago)

I cannot wait to make this!! Or come over and try it 🙂
Reply
- Stephanie
  January 12, 2011 at 2:20 pm (14 years ago)
  
  Thanks Annie! There’s some left in my fridge if you come by soon…
Hester
January 12, 2011 at 5:41 pm (14 years ago)

Yay for homemade butter! And hoorah for compound butters! I think I’ve only done it once. Perhaps it’s because I don’t use butter that much in my cooking. I’m more of an extra virgin olive oil freak, haha. However, I have a question–how about adding honey or agave nectar to your homemade butter to sweeten it that way?
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- Stephanie
  January 12, 2011 at 6:10 pm (14 years ago)
  
  I don’t use a ton of butter either, but leftover heavy cream led to butter, which led to garlic butter, which led to happiness 🙂 Agave or honey is a great solution that didn’t immediately come to me. I was avoiding those till recently cause I was just avoiding sweets in general, but I just gave up on that. Too late to make sweet compound butter out of my homemade batch, but I will make some sometime in the future! Perhaps next time I make brinner (breakfast for dinner).
Tiffany
January 12, 2011 at 6:40 pm (14 years ago)

My post from yesterday contained two compound butters! One was an herb butter and the other was a roasted pear-guava butter! I love how you can add so much flavor by just taking small extra steps!
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Stephanie
January 12, 2011 at 6:52 pm (14 years ago)

Tiffany, your compound butters sound fabulous! Roasted pear in anything would be great, but I would never think to add it to butter. Plus guava paste! Sounds great.
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Sarah
January 12, 2011 at 8:19 pm (14 years ago)

Stephanie – Glad to see that you’ve been making more butter! You inspired me to make use of that heavy whipping cream sitting in my fridge this weekend. Wanted to show you the results: http://sarahsplate.com/2011/01/12/homemade-cinnamon-butter/
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Stephanie
January 12, 2011 at 8:25 pm (14 years ago)

Sarah, that’s awesome! Cinnamon is my favorite spice (my rabbit is even named Cinnamon) and cinnamon butter would be awesome. Can’t believe I skipped over cinnamon and went to garlic. I’ll just have to make more compound butter…
Reply
sensiblecooking
January 13, 2011 at 3:41 pm (14 years ago)

one of my friend is a garlic lover. This will be wonderful treat for him.
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Suchitra
January 14, 2011 at 1:57 am (14 years ago)

Looks gorgeous – loveeeeee garlic butter
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Chelsea @ Sprinkles of Parsley
January 17, 2011 at 1:30 pm (14 years ago)

Oh wow, Stephanie! This does look great. I never thought to make the butter and spread it on toast- that’s genius!
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Medeja
January 18, 2011 at 2:09 am (14 years ago)

I think such home made butter would taste good almost with anything 🙂 in Lithuania we liked to buy butter with various dried herbs.
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anna
August 14, 2011 at 4:10 pm (13 years ago)

When I make compound butter I melt it in whatever dish I’m storing it in – then you can just stir whatever you like in rather than dirty up the mixer. Garlic is by far my favorite!
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Meranda
February 3, 2014 at 10:17 am (11 years ago)

If u don’t have an electric beater, what would u use? Sorry if this is a silly question. I just really want to start cooking better food. Lol 🙂 And my 3 year old eats just about anything! Thank u.
Reply
- Stephanie Saunders
  February 3, 2014 at 6:48 pm (11 years ago)
  
  Meranda, you can whip it by hand with a whisk, but it will take you a long while. You’ll get strong though! 😉